


Insert Page Break

by mary_anjel



Category: Led Zeppelin
Genre: 1968, 1970s, 2017, 2020, Angst, Attempted, Bad Poetry, Canon Universe, Concerts, Depression, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Erotic Poetry, Eroto-comatose lucidity, Feels, First Meetings, Free Verse, Humor, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Jimmy's POV, Language Anachronism, M/M, Mentions of Myth & Folklore, Music, Mythology - Freeform, One True Pairing, Out of Character, POV First Person, Pangbourne, Poetry, Songfic, Soulmates, True Love, You Have Been Warned, You get the idea, currently on hold, i don't even know what this is, listen, love poetry, might add new parts in future, new tags for new chapters, old fools in love, rated M for Chapter 2 only, sexual magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:40:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25693699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mary_anjel/pseuds/mary_anjel
Summary: A collection of amateur poems written in Jimmy’s POV. Based on the Writer’s Month 2020 prompts on tumblr.If Jimmy had written these he’d never show them to anyone. They would be scattered over his private journals over the years - but not lost. (Unless they got destroyed by a flood, that is.)
Relationships: Jimmy Page/Robert Plant
Comments: 40
Kudos: 29





	1. tanka

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts taken from the Writer’s Month 2020 challenge, although I’m not participating, just giving credit where credit’s due.
> 
> Beware: I am a reader not a writer. But in this fandom, maybe because it’s so small, I’ve kind of let myself loose and decided that as long as I feel the slightest pull towards doing anything, there shall be content.
> 
> I chose Jimmy’s POV because Robert says enough through his own poetry. Also it amuses me to think that if Jimmy actually wrote (writes?) poems, they *would* be quite simplistic (I mean, didn't he claim he wrote Tangerine?.. Which I love, don't get me wrong, but) - certainly less impressive than Robert’s word-weaving (though probably better than mine since he’d be using his mother tongue).
> 
> As always with RPF, this has nothing to do with the real people, only the characters we have collectively imagined in the fandom.

spring has blown cold

for twenty-one weeks now

look on 

if you can bear to watch

my hands so clean

_2020_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 2: quarantine
> 
> Think video calls.


	2. My Shining One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 3: magic  
> Prompt 8: eight  
> Prompt 25: drop
> 
> On smartphone, landscape orientation works best for this one.

O baby, my shining one! How unguarded you are stretched out before me,

Neither lucid nor dreaming,

Both sated and parched,

Your powerful thighs splayed wide open, now limp like the rest of you, heel to crown

Pure and unashamed in your sweet exhaustion;

This motionless, pliant, glorious form, wondrous and divine,

This body, which is Nature, and Soul, and Love, and all that is sacred given shape,

Which is admired by men and women alike,

Which rebels daily against the confines and prudishness of clothes,

Which is filled to the brim with mirth and potent magic,

Which you inhabit so fully and generously,

Which many more lovers take their pleasure in,

Which yields to my touch now, as I am overcome with the need to fall to my knees before you,

To see your chest once again flushed with love,

To feel the truth, the life, the meaning of you pulse behind your neatly-carved belly button,

To have tears of unbearable bliss stream down your temples,

To push you further open and over the brink,

To answer your will,

To weep for joy at having my desire mirrored and doubled in you, 

(O my golden love!)

You take my worship, my guidance, my hands sliding softly, my amorous mouth,

And in return, you give me the pleasure of your glowing skin, your natural odour,

Of your spent cock stiffening so slowly against my kiss;

You give up to me the very last drop of your essence,

Which I drink up as you tremble and shake for the eighth time under my rapturous palms.

_1971_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The good old sex magic (admittedly light version) - more or less based on the ideas and teachings of Aleister Crowley.  
> I had a right laugh with the shameless Whitman stylisation. Because, you know, when it comes to gay sex and body worship, Walt is your guy.


	3. I Will

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 4: long-distance relationship
> 
> On smartphones, lansdcape orientation is preferable, to keep better track of the line breaks.
> 
> Please don’t skip the end notes after reading.

_after Robert Plant’s “Carry Fire”_

  
  


“So long ago” is right; no longer a child - yet, I’d

never been punched in the gut by soft sunlight on bare

shoulder blades, my

old love. You carry my heart

everywhere. They say space and time to

be one. Far away in my hands now, the tiny wildflower you

once put in my hair with ease, as if

I could carry its weight. The massivest objects (did you

know?) curve the cosmos around them, pulling it in. Forever I will

orbit this delicate thing pressed between the ink of a world that I understand.

_2017_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Golden Shovel is a newish contemporary poetic form. Basically you take a phrase from another poem that you like and write your own poem in such a way that every word of the original phrase is the last word of each line in your poem - in the correct order. Points if you spotted this yourself while reading.
> 
> A bit of context on how this form was created (which, to me, adds to the long-distance Jimbert vibe in here quite a bit): the guy who came up with it had been reading his favourite poem so often that its words wouldn’t leave his head. So he decided to create his own poem around them. Isn’t it just fitting?:)
> 
> Other references:  
> Robert Plant’s “Dance with You Tonight” and e.e. cummings’ “i carry your heart with me”, as well as Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity which I don’t quite understand but continue to be intrigued by.
> 
> Lastly, if you like visuals like I do, here’s a little thing I’ve found that (almost) fits: https://ibb.co/wY6HT5d


	4. no turbulence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 5: soulmates  
> Prompt 7: hurt/comfort  
> Prompt 31: there was only one bed

cool air blown at the back of my neck

swims gently over

gnarled thoughts your palm a

solid warmth (exactly) where my joy used to lodge

and bloom

I don’t know

I don’t know

the weight

of your thigh over mine

not enough 

not enough 

not--

squeeze me

hard

crush

bite 

swal-

low

me

I

need it 

need need need

SOMETHING

you breathe & I’m pushed

ever so slightly

forth

and back

forth

and back

like sea waves rocking

against pebbled shore

a personal body of water

wrapped its enormous self round the

lone occupant of the

lone bed aboard the

lone ship

like sea come to 

devour a tiny island or is it

to hug this speck of land

even just for a short while

to take away from it

the burden of

staying afloat

forth

and back again

I wish I could wear

your skin

like second skin

snug against my back

just like this

oh baby

what if

you seeped into me like watercolours do at a touch when they

fuse and trickle in rivulets making a new whole we’d make 

beautiful patterns we’d fit

back together how would you like

to have double the limbs the eyes

_the hair_

I dare say that would inspire

such awe

there’d be no more

need for chords or high notes

at all

I feel us shake

with mirth

a mighty ball of flesh atop the covers

lost

in amazement

not hard to recognise this

desire of

_je ne sais quoi_

but you are

a child of the sun already

how long till

how long till we land again? the humming air

is dry and dull and stifling and

you start humming a

lullaby

so quiet there’s no

strain in your voice

at all

_1975_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Partly inspired by the article "Led Zeppelin Dances on Air and It Ain't the Quaalude Shuffle", Creem (May 1975) from which I got the impression that '75 was not all roses for the band. The source tumblr account has been deactivated, but the scans can still be accessed here: shorturl.at/gwA37
> 
> And of course, a shout-out to Plato and his The Symposium. Good stuff.


	5. (washed away)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 6: ocean

steady

rain

hitting

my foot’s side

I got high

oh 

to an ocean I roar

a whole lot more

good things and the sunlight

I lost

I know

the night turns

away

now sing to my heart

only

the tears 

so good

_ 1977 _

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technique: blackout / erasure poetry  
> Original text used: the lyrics to “The Ocean” by Led Zeppelin


	6. A Pangbourne Sonnet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 11: light

Amid the morning quiet, my mind is caught

By summer sun reflected off your hair;

You watch the river, yet suspect it not —

Its shimmer to your shine cannot compare.

This lambent light that beats upon the waves

Of golden curls and waters swift and deep

Is the same light that will give birth to shapes

Which neither hands nor eyes could hope to keep.

I’ve never braved the current lest I drown

Or heard it calling quite the same as this;

The nature of a river is to run

And what it leaves behind it doesn’t miss.

Such treachery I keenly do resent

And would submerge myself in you instead.

  
  


_1968_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Grammar and meter fought an unequal battle here so some articles may be missing. I call poetic license.


	7. There once was a young man called Jimbo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 12: meet cute

There once was a young man called Jimbo

Who was waiting to hear a new singer.

But Jim was quite naughty

And, eyeing the roadie,

He thought, “What a hot piece of himbo!”

_ (1968)  _

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn’t gonna do this one but honestly, how many RPF pairings do you know where a meet cute is straight-up canon? It should be celebrated.
> 
> (I laugh at Jimmy but I like to imagine he’s capable of laughing at himself too. Even though, realistically, I’m tagging it ‘OOC’ just because of this premise.)


	8. Zep Tepi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 13: music  
> Prompt 18: myths  
> No Jimbert this time.

A string of sounds

A word, a melody, a meaning

A world pulled into being

For the (soon-to-be) faithful

We the drug

The praise, the sex, the frenzy

Offerings aplenty 

In exchange for a next hit

Ring around the rosie

No rest for the godlike

Those forgotten

Have all fallen down

They the source

We the divine will

Six tongues of steel

He that heareth, let him hear

  
  


I look at the ocean below. Now

Crash into it with the first heavy riff

It’s been a long time

_Clap your hands if you believe_

_1975_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zep Tepi (the First Time) - the Golden Age in ancient Egyptian history when gods governed the Earth.
> 
> The references are all pretty much canon. Robert shouted his famous “I’m a Golden God!” in 1975. Every ‘75 Zeppelin show opened with ‘Rock and Roll’. Page has used strings wound with nickel-plated steel since his early days with Zep afaik, but the nickel % in those is negligible:) Jimmy is thinking about the Egyptian creation myths which he, as a Thelemite, would know about. According to one particular myth which centers on creative thought, Ptah, the patron god of craftsmen, conceived the world out of the primeval waters of chaos by the thought of his heart and gave life through the magic of his word.
> 
> [Side note: Ptah also embodied "the divine essence with which the sun god was fed to come into existence” (I said no Jimbert here but hey), while he himself was self-made, the god who made himself god. Btw, his wife Sekhmet was a solar deity and looked like a lioness. Okay, I’ll shut up now.]


	9. Joy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 19: deaging  
> Prompt 30: joy  
> Battling writer's block

scales thick with time

gemstones in the rough

shiny enough

prey begs to be eaten

ask and you shall receive

he becomes ancient who

forgets how to measure

feeling alive

filtering out sunlight

through the slits of his eyes

all the better to see you with

those born to crawl shall never fly

it is said

but then

what is this flutter

this jolt in the stomach

like soaring

like falling

scary and warm

like being fifteen and fearless again

(like holding hands in the market square)

who would dare

reach out with a naked hand

time after time, only

to find the serpent’s belly soft

and full of joy?

I uncoil

and slither closer to bask in the light

of your smiling eyes

_ 1975  _

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Actual interviews:
> 
> [If you could relive one day, which would you choose?]  
> "It would be one particular day in summer when I was 15. It was the first time I felt I was truly in love; the girl and I wandered hand-in-hand through the countryside. Absolute bliss!" (ca. 1970)
> 
> "I don’t feel it. I don’t feel 31. Sometimes I feel 1000 years old, but othertimes I still feel 17 or 18, totally naive about lots of things that are going on." (1975)
> 
> Bits and pieces hijacked from Jimmy's Moroccan Diaries (by Goldragon): https://archiveofourown.org/works/25379800
> 
> "We held hands in the souk. I knew it would mean a lot to him. I didn’t realise it would mean so much to me. He is truly blessed. - I would envy him bitterly, but instead I bask in his light. That’s my blessing. We wandered hand in hand just for the sake of it. It was so hot, our palms were sweating, but I did not care. I was happy for him. I was happy for myself."


	10. Wearing and Tearing (Revisited)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 23: poison  
> Prompt 24: true love’s kiss

It starts out like a murmur

Then it spreads out further

Till it paralyses you

No way to resist it

How can you resist it

When the poison’s born inside of you?

Trying to kiss it better

Don’t try to kiss it better

It’s not something that a kiss can cure

Y’know?

Y’know?

Y’know? (x3)

When the mind is broken

What’s the point of talkin'?

How much more can you endure?

Hate to see you hurtin’

But one thing’s for certain

A snake who bites himself is doomed

Leave me my medication

I need my medication

The only thing I feel that’s pure

Y’know?

Y’know?

Y’know? (x3)

_ 1978  _

__

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk who needs to hear this, but “Wearing and Tearing” was originally recorded in late 1978 during the In Through the Out Door sessions. Which makes a lot of sense given its subject matter.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [In your hand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28621644) by [mary_anjel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mary_anjel/pseuds/mary_anjel)




End file.
